Spuggy returned. He had left us at Bouleurs to find a bicycle in Paris. Coming back he had no idea that we had moved. So he rode too far north. He escaped luckily. He was riding along about three hundred yards behind two motor-cyclists. Suddenly he saw them stop abruptly and put up their hands. He fled. A little farther on he came to a village and asked for coffee. He heard that Uhlans had been there a few hours before, and was taken to see a woman who had been shot through the breast. Then he went south through Villeneuve, and following a fortunate instinct, ran into our outposts the other side of Tournan.

We all slept grandly on mattresses. It was the first time we had been two nights in the same place since Dour.

We awoke early to a gorgeous day. We were actually going to advance. The news put us in marvellous good temper. For the first time in my recollection we offered each other our bacon, and one at the end of breakfast said he had had enough. The Staff was almost giggling, and a battalion (the Cheshires, I think) that we saw pass, was absolutely shouting with joy. You would have thought we had just gained a famous victory.

Half of us went forward with the column. The rest remained for a slaughterous hour. First we went to the hen-house, and in ten minutes had placed ten dripping victims in the French gendarme captain's car. Then George and I went in pursuit of a turkey for the Skipper. It was an elusive bird with a perfectly Poultonian swerve, but with a bagful of curses, a bleeding hand, and a large stick, I did it to death.

We set out merrily and picked up Spuggy, Cecil, and George in the big forest that stretches practically from the Marne to Tournan. They thought they had heard a Uhlan, but nothing came of it (he turned out to be a deer), so we went on to Villeneuve. There I bought some biscuits and George scrounged some butter. A job to the 3rd Division on our right and another in pursuit of an errant officer, and then a sweaty and exiguous lunch—it was a sweltering noon—seated on a blistering pavement. Soon after lunch three of us were sent on to Mortcerf, a village on a hill to the north of the forest. We were the first English there—the Germans had left it in the morning—and the whole population, including one strikingly pretty flapper, turned out to welcome us in their best clean clothes,—it may have been Sunday.

We accepted any quantity of gorgeous, luscious fruit, retiring modestly to a shady log to eat it, and smoke a delectable pipe. In a quarter of an hour Major Hildebrand of the 2nd Corps turned up in his car, and later the company.

Pollers had had a little adventure. He was with some of our men when he saw a grey figure coming down one of the glades to the road. We knew there were many stray Uhlans in the forest who had been left behind by our advance. The grey figure was stalked, unconscious of his danger. Pollers had a shot with his revolver, luckily without effect, for the figure turned out to be our blasphemous farrier, who had gone into the forest, clad only in regulation grey shirt and trousers, to find some water.

Later in the afternoon I was sent off to find the North Irish Horse. I discovered them four miles away in the first flush of victory. They had had a bit of a scrap with Uhlans, and were proudly displaying to an admiring brigade that was marching past a small but select collection of horses, lances, and saddles.

This afternoon George smashed up his bicycle, the steering head giving at a corner.

We bivouacked on the drive, but the hardness of our bed didn't matter, as we were out all night—all of us, including the two, Grimers and Cecil. It was nervous riding in the forest. All the roads looked exactly alike, and down every glade we expected a shot from derelict Uhlans. That night I thought out plots for at least four stories. It would have been three, but I lost my way, and was only put right by striking a wandering convoy. I was in search of the Division Train. I looked for it at Tournan and at Villeneuve and right through the forest, but couldn't find it. I was out from ten to two, and then again from two to five, with messages for miscellaneous ammunition columns. I collared an hour's sleep and, by mistake, a chauffeur's overcoat, which led to recriminations in the morning. But the chauffeur had an unfair advantage. I was too tired to reply.

Grimers, who cannot see well at night, was terrified when he had to take a despatch through the forest. He rode with a loaded revolver in one hand, and was only saved from shooting a wretched transport officer by a wild cry, "For God's sake, look what you're doing."

The eldest Cecil reported a distinct smell of dead horses at the obelisk in the forest. At least he rather thought they were dead donkeys. The smell was a little different—more acrid and unpleasant. We told him that there were eight dead Germans piled at the side of the road, and we reminded him that it had been a sweltering day.

We were terribly tired in the morning. Spuggy, George, and Orr went off to Paris for new bicycles, and we were left short-handed again. Another tropical day.

The Skipper rode the spare bike with great dash, the elder Cecil and I attendant. We sprinted along a good straight road to the cobbled, crowded little town of Faremoutiers. Then we decided to advance to Mouroux, our proposed headquarters. It was a haggard village, just off the road. We arrived there about twelve: the Germans had departed at six, leaving behind them a souvenir in the dead body of a fellow from the East Lancs. crumpled in a ditch. He had been shot while eating. It was my first corpse. I am afraid I was not overwhelmed with thoughts of the fleetingness of life or the horror of death. If I remember my feelings aright, they consisted of a pinch of sympathy mixed with a trifle of disgust, and a very considerable hunger, which some apples by the roadside did something to allay.

I shall never forget Mouroux. It was just a little square of old houses. Before the Mairie was placed a collection of bottles from which the Sales Boches had very properly drunk. French proclamations were scribbled over with coarse, heavy jests. The women were almost hysterical with relieved anxiety. The men were still sullen, and, though they looked well fed, begged for bread. A German knapsack that I had picked up and left in charge of some villagers was torn to shreds in fierce hatred when my back was turned.

It was very lonely there in the sun. We had outstripped the advance-guard by mistake and were relieved when it came up.

We made prisoner of a German who had overslept himself because he had had a bath.

I rushed back with Grimers on my carrier to fetch another bicycle. On my return my engine suddenly produced an unearthly metallic noise. It was only an aeroplane coming down just over my head.

In the late afternoon we marched into Coulommiers. The people crowded into the streets and cheered us. The girls, with tears in their eyes, handed us flowers.

Three of us went to the Mairie. The Maire, a courtly little fellow in top-hat and frock-coat, welcomed us in charming terms. Two fat old women rushed up to us and besought us to allow them to do something for us. We set one to make us tea, and the other to bring us hot water and soap.

A small girl of about eight brought me her kitten and wanted to give it me. I explained to her that it would not be very comfortable tied with pink ribbons to my carrier. She gravely assented, sat on my knee, told me I was very dirty, and commanded me to kill heaps and heaps of Germans. She didn't like them; they had beards!

You know those fierce middle-aged Frenchwomen of the bourgeois class, hard as Scotsmen, close as Jews, and with feelings about as fine as those of a motor-bus. She was one of them, and she was the foremost of a largish crowd that collected round me. With her was a pretty girl of about twenty-two.

The mother began with a rhetorical outburst against all Germans, anathematising in particular those who had spent the last fortnight in Coulommiers, in which town her uncle had set up his business, which, though it had proved successful, as they all knew, &c., &c. The crowd murmured that they did all know. Then the old harridan chanted the wrongs which the Germans had wrought until, when she had worked the crowd and herself up to a heat of furious excitement, she lowered her voice, suddenly lowered her tone. In a grating whisper she narrated, in more detail than I cared to hear, the full story of how her daughter—to whom she pointed—had been shamefully treated by the Germans. The crowd growled. The daughter was, I think, more pleased at being the object of my sympathy and the centre of the crowd's interest than agonised at the remembrance of her misfortune.

Some of the company coming up saved me from the recital of further outrages. The hag told them of a house where the Germans had left a rifle or two and some of our messages which they had intercepted. The girl hesitated a moment, and then followed. I started hastily to go on, but the girl, hearing the noise of my engine, ran back to bid me an unembarrassed farewell.

I rode through Coulommiers, a jolly rambling old town, to our billet in a suburban villa on the Rebais road. The Division was marching past in the very best of spirits. We, who were very tired, endeavoured to make ourselves comfortable—we were then blanketless—on the abhorrent surface of a narrow garden path.

That night a 2nd Corps despatch rider called in half an hour before his death. We have heard many explanations of how he died. He crashed into a German barricade, and we discovered him the next morning with his eyes closed, neatly covered with a sheet, in a quaint little house at the entrance to the village of Doue.

At dawn (Sept. 8th) the others went on with the column. I was sent back with a despatch for Faremoutiers, and then was detailed to remain for an hour with Cecil. Ten minutes after my return the Fat Boy rode in, greatly excited. He had gone out along the Aulnoy road with a message, and round a corner had run into a patrol of Uhlans. He kept his head, turned quickly, and rode off in a shower of bullets. He was tremendously indignant, and besought some cavalry who were passing to go in pursuit.

We heard the rumble of guns and started in a hurry after the column. Sergeant Merchant's bicycle—our spare, a Rudge—burnt out its clutch, and we left it in exchange for some pears at a cottage with a delicious garden in Champbreton. Doue was a couple of miles farther on.

Colonel Sawyer, D.D.M.S., stopped me anxiously, and asked me to go and see if I could recognise the despatch rider's corpse. I meditated over it for a few minutes, then ran on to the signal-office by the roadside. There I exchanged my old bike for a new one which had been discovered in a cottage. Nothing was wrong with my ancient grid except a buckled back rim, due to collision with a brick when riding without a lamp. One of the company rode it quietly to Serches, then it went on the side-car, and was eventually discarded at Beuvry.

I found the Division very much in action. The object of the Germans was, by an obstinate rearguard action, to hold first the line of the Petit Morin and second the line La Ferte to the hills north of Mery, so that their main body might get back across the Marne and continue northward their retreat, necessitated by our pressure on their flank. This retreat again was to be as slow as possible, to prevent an outflanking of the whole.

Our object was obviously to prevent them achieving theirs.

Look at the map and grasp these three things:—

1. The two rivers—the Petit Morin debouching so as to cover the German left centre.

2. From La Ferte westwards the rivers run in deep ravines, hemmed in by precipitous thickly-wooded hills.

3. Only two bridges across the Marne remained—one large one at La Ferte and one small one at Saacy.

When I arrived at Doue the Germans were holding the Forest of Jouarre in force. They were in moderate force on the south bank of the Petit Morin, and had some guns, but not many, on the north bank.

Here is a tale of how glory may be forced upon the unwilling.

There were troops on the road running south from Jouarre. They might be Germans retreating. They might be the 3rd Corps advancing. The Staff wanted to know at once, and, although a despatch rider had already been sent west to ride up the road from the south, it was thought that another despatch rider skirting the east side of the Bois de Jouarre might find out more quickly. So the captain called for volunteers.



Now one despatch rider had no stomach for the job. He sat behind a tree and tried to look as if he had not heard the captain's appeal. The sergeant in charge had faith in him and, looking round, said in a loud voice, "Here is Jones!" (it is obviously impolitic for me to give even his nickname, if I wish to tell the truth). The despatch rider jumped up, pretended he knew nothing of what was going forward, and asked what was required. He was told, and with sinking heart enthusiastically volunteered for the job.

He rode off, taking the road by La Chevrie Farm. Beyond the farm the Germans sniped him unmercifully, but (so he told me) he got well down on the tank and rode "all out" until he came to the firing line just south-west of the farm to the north of Chevrie. Major Buckle came out of his ditch to see what was wanted. The rifle fire seemed to increase. The air was buzzing, and just in front of his bicycle multitudinous little spurts of dust flecked the road.

It was distinctly unpleasant, and, as Major Buckle persisted in standing in the middle of the road instead of taking the despatch rider with him into his ditch, the despatch rider had to stand there too, horribly frightened. The Major said it was impossible to go farther. There was only a troop of cavalry, taking careful cover, at the farm in front, and—

"My God, man, you're under machine-gun fire."

So that's what it is, murmured the despatch rider to himself, not greatly cheered. He saw he could not get to any vantage point by that road, and it seemed best to get back at once. He absolutely streaked along back to D.H.Q., stopping on the way very much against his will to deliver a message from Major Buckle to the Duke of Wellington's who were in support.

He gave in his report, such as it was, to Colonel Romer, and was praised. Moral: Be called away by some pressing engagement before the captain calls for volunteers. May Gott strafe thoroughly all interfering sergeants!

The Headquarters Staff advanced in an hour or so to some houses. The 3rd Corps, consisting of the 4th Division and the unlucky 19th Brigade, had pushed on with tremendous dash towards Jouarre, and we learnt from an aeroplane which dropped a message on the hill at Doue that the general situation was favourable. The Germans were crowding across the bridge at La Ferte under heavy shell fire, but unluckily we could not hit the blighted bridge.

It was now midday and very hot. There was little water. We had been advancing over open fields without a vestige of shade.

Under cover of their guns the Germans fled across the Petit Morin in such confusion that they did not even hold the very defensible heights to the north of the river. We followed on their heels through St Ouen and up the hill behind the village. Three of us went on ahead and sat for two hours in a trench with borrowed rifles waiting for the Germans to come out of a wood. But it began to rain very hard, and the Germans came on the other side and were taken by the Cyclists.

It was just getting dark when we rendezvoused at the cross-roads of Charnesseuil. The village was battered by our guns, but the villagers did not mind a scrap and welcomed us with screams of joy. The local inn was reopened with cheers, and in spite of the fact that there were two dead horses, very evil-smelling, just outside, we had drinks all round.

We were interrupted by laughter and cheers. We rushed out to see the quaintest procession coming from the west into Charnesseuil. Seventy odd immense Prussian Guards were humbly pushing in the bicycles of forty of our Divisional Cyclists, who were dancing round them in delight. They had captured a hundred and fifty of them, but our guns had shelled them, luckily without doing much damage to the Cyclists, so loading up the prisoners with all their kit and equipment, and making them lead their captors' bicycles, the Cyclists brought them in triumph for the inspection of the Staff. It was a great moment.

I was very tired, and, careless of who passed, stretched myself at the side of the road for a sleep. I was wakened an hour later, and we all went along together to the chateau. There we slept in the hall before the contented faces of some fine French pictures—or the majority of them,—the rest were bestially slashed.

At the break of dawn (Sept. 9th) I was sent off to the 14th Brigade, which composed the advance-guard. Scouts had reported that Saacy had been evacuated by the enemy. So we pushed on cautiously and took possession of the bridge.

I came up with the Brigade Staff on a common at the top of the succeeding hill, having been delayed by a puncture. Nixon, the S.O., told me that a battery of ours in position on the common to the south of the farm would open fire in a few minutes. The German guns would reply, but would be quickly silenced. In the meantime I was to take shelter in the farm.

I had barely put my bicycle under cover in the courtyard when the Germans opened fire, not at our guns but at a couple of companies of the Manchesters who were endeavouring to take cover just north of the farm.

In the farm I found King and his platoon of Cyclists. Shrapnel bullets simply rattled against the old house, and an occasional common shell dropped near by way of variety. The Cyclists were restive, and I was too, so to relieve the situation I proposed breakfast. King and I had half a loaf of Saacy bread and half a pot of jam I always carried about with me. The rest went to the men. Our breakfast was nearly spoilt by the Manchesters, who, after they had lost a few men, rushed through the farm into the wood, where, naturally enough, they lost a few more. They besought the Cyclists to cover their retreat, but as it was from shrapnel we mildly suggested it was impossible.

The courtyard was by this time covered with tiles and pitted with bullets. We, close up against the wall, had been quite moderately safe. The shelling slackened off, so we thought we had better do a bunk. With pride of race the motor-cyclist left last.

The 14th Brigade had disappeared. I went back down the track and found the General and his staff, fuming, half-way up the hill. The German guns could not be found, and the German guns were holding up the whole Division.

I slept by the roadside for an hour. I was woken up to take a message to 2nd Corps at Saacy. On my return I was lucky enough to see a very spectacular performance.

From the point which I call A to the point B is, or ought to be, 5000 yards. At A there is a gap in the wood, and you get a gorgeous view over the valley. The road from La Ferte to the point B runs on high ground, and at B there is a corresponding gap, the road being open completely for roughly 200 yards. A convoy of German lorries was passing with an escort of infantry, and the General thought we might as well have a shot at them. Two 18-pdrs. were man-handled to the side of the hill and opened fire, while six of us with glasses and our lunch sat behind and watched.

It was a dainty sight—the lorries scooting across, while the escort took cover. The guns picked off a few, completely demolishing two lorries, then with a few shells into some cavalry that appeared on the horizon, they ceased fire.

The affair seemed dangerous to the uninitiated despatch rider. Behind the two guns was a brigade of artillery in column of route on an exceedingly steep and narrow road. Guns firing in the open can be seen. If the Germans were to spot us, we shuddered to think what would become of the column behind us on the road.

That afternoon I had nothing more to do, so, returning to the common, I dozed there for a couple of hours, knowing that I should have little sleep that night. At dusk we bivouacked in the garden of the chateau at Mery. We arrived at the chateau before the Staff and picked up some wine.

In the evening I heard that a certain captain in the gunners went reconnoitring and found the battery—it was only one—that had held up our advance. He returned to the General, put up his eyeglass and drawled, "I say, General, I've found that battery. I shall now deal with it." He did. In five minutes it was silenced, and the 14th attacked up the Valley of Death, as the men called it. They were repulsed with very heavy losses; their reinforcements, which had arrived the day before, were practically annihilated.

It was a bad day.

That night it was showery, and I combined vain attempts to get to sleep between the showers with a despatch to 2nd Corps at Saacy and another to the Division Ammunition Column the other side of Charnesseuil.

Towards morning the rain became heavier, so I took up my bed—i.e., my greatcoat and ground-sheet—and, finding four free square feet in the S.O., had an hour's troubled sleep before I was woken up half an hour before dawn to get ready to take an urgent message as soon as it was light.

On September 9th, just before dawn—it was raining and very cold—I was sent with a message to Colonel Cameron at the top of the hill, telling him he might advance. The Germans, it appeared, had retired during the night. Returning to the chateau at Mery, I found the company had gone on, so I followed them along the Valley of Death to Montreuil.

It was the dismallest morning, dark as if the sun would never rise, chequered with little bursts of heavy rain. The road was black with mud. The hedges dripped audibly into watery ditches. There was no grass, only a plentiful coarse vegetation. The valley itself seemed enclosed by unpleasant hills from joy or light. Soldiers lined the road—some were dead, contorted, or just stretched out peacefully; some were wounded, and they moaned as I passed along. There was one officer who slowly moved his head from side to side. That was all he could do. But I could not stop; the ambulances were coming up. So I splashed rapidly through the mud to the cross-roads north of Montreuil.

To the right was a barn in which the Germans had slept. It was littered with their equipment. And in front of it was a derelict motor-car dripping in the rain.

At Montreuil we had a scrap of bully with a bit of biscuit for breakfast, then we ploughed slowly and dangerously alongside the column to Dhuizy, where a house that our artillery had fired was still burning. The chalked billeting marks of the Germans were still on the doors of the cottages. I had a despatch to take back along the column to the Heavies. Grease a couple of inches thick carpeted the road. We all agreed that we should be useless in winter.

At Dhuizy the sun came out.

A couple of miles farther on I had a talk with two German prisoners—R.A.M.C. They were sick of the war. Summed it up thus:

Wir weissen nichts: wir essen nichts: immer laufen, laufen, laufen.

In bright sunshine we pushed on towards Gandeln. On the way we had a bit of lunch, and I left a pipe behind. As there was nothing doing I pushed on past the column, waiting for a moment to watch some infantry draw a large wood, and arrived with the cavalry at Gandeln, a rakish old town at the bottom of an absurdly steep hill. Huggie passed me with a message. Returning he told me that the road ahead was pitiably disgusting.

You must remember that we were hotly pursuing a disorganised foe. In front the cavalry and horse artillery were harassing them for all they were worth, and whenever there was an opening our bigger guns would gallop up for a trifle of blue murder.

From Gandeln the road rises sharply through woods and then runs on high ground without a vestige of cover for two and a half miles into Chezy. On this high, open ground our guns caught a German convoy, and we saw the result.

First there were a few dead and wounded Germans, all muddied. The men would look curiously at each, and sometimes would laugh. Then at the top of the hill we came upon some smashed and abandoned waggons. These were hastily looted. Men piled themselves with helmets, greatcoats, food, saddlery, until we looked a crowd of dishevelled bandits. The German wounded watched—they lay scattered in a cornfield, like poppies. Sometimes Tommy is not a pleasant animal, and I hated him that afternoon. One dead German had his pockets full of chocolate. They scrambled over him, pulling him about, until it was all divided.

Just off the road was a small sandpit. Three or four waggons—the horses, frightened by our shells, had run over the steep place into the sand. Their heads and necks had been forced back into their carcasses, and on top of this mash were the splintered waggons. I sat for a long time by the well in Chezy and watched the troops go by, caparisoned with spoils. I hated war.

Just as the sun was setting we toiled out of Chezy on to an upland of cornfields, speckled with grey patches of dead men and reddish-brown patches of dead horses. One great horse stood out on a little cliff, black against the yellow of the descending sun. It furiously stank. Each time I passed it I held my nose, and I was then pretty well used to smells. The last I saw of it—it lay grotesquely on its back with four stiff legs sticking straight up like the legs of an overturned table—it was being buried by a squad of little black men billeted near. They were cursing richly. The horse's revenge in death, perhaps, for its ill-treatment in life.

It was decided to stay the night at Chezy. The village was crowded, dark, and confusing. Three of us found the signal office, and made ourselves very comfortable for the night with some fresh straw that we piled all over us. The roads were for the first time too greasy for night-riding. The rest slept in a barn near, and did not discover the signal office until dawn.

We awoke, stiff but rested, to a fine warm morning. It was a quiet day. We rode with the column along drying roads until noon through peaceful rolling country—then, as there was nothing doing, Grimers and I rode to the head of the column, and inquiring with care whether our cavalry was comfortably ahead, came to the village of Noroy-sur-Ourcq. We "scrounged" for food and found an inn. At first our host, a fat well-to-do old fellow, said the Germans had taken everything, but, when he saw we really were hungry, he produced sardines, bread, butter, sweets, and good red wine. So we made an excellent meal—and were not allowed to pay a penny.

He told that the Germans, who appeared to be in great distress, had taken everything in the village, though they had not maltreated any one. Their horses were dropping with fatigue—that we knew—and their officers kept telling their men to hurry up and get quickly on the march. At this point they were just nine hours in front of us.

Greatly cheered we picked up the Division again at Chouy, and sat deliciously on a grass bank to wait for the others. Just off the road on the opposite side was a dead German. Quite a number of men broke their ranks to look curiously at him—anything to break the tedious, deadening monotony of marching twenty-five miles day after day: as a major of the Dorsets said to us as we sat there, "It is all right for us, but it's hell for them!"

The Company came up, and we found that in Chouy the Germans had overlooked a telephone—great news for the cable detachment. After a glance at the church, a gorgeous bit of Gothic that we had shelled, we pushed on in the rain to Billy-sur-Ourcq. I was just looking after a convenient loft when I was sent back to Chouy to find the Captain's watch. A storm was raging down the valley. The road at any time was covered with tired foot sloggers. I had to curse them, for they wouldn't get out of the way. Soon I warmed and cursed them crudely and glibly in four languages. On my return I found some looted boiled eggs and captured German Goulasch hot for me. I fed and turned in.

This day my kit was left behind with other unnecessary "tackle," to lighten the horses' load. I wish I had known it.

The remaining eggs for breakfast—delicious.

Huggie and I were sent off just before dawn on a message that took us to St Remy, a fine church, and Hartennes, where we were given hot tea by that great man, Sergeant Croucher of the Divisional Cyclists. I rode back to Rozet St Albin, a pleasant name, along a road punctuated with dead and very evil-smelling horses. Except for the smell it was a good run of about ten miles. I picked up the Division again on the sandy road above Chacrise.

Sick of column riding I turned off the main road up a steep hill into Ambrief, a desolate black-and-white village totally deserted. It came on to pour, but there was a shrine handy. There I stopped until I was pulled out by an ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had never seen an Englishman before and wanted to hear all about us.

On into Acy, where I decided to head off the Division at Ciry, instead of crossing the Aisne and riding straight to Vailly, our proposed H.Q. for that night. The decision saved my life, or at least my liberty. I rode to Sermoise, a bright little village where the people were actually making bread. At the station there was a solitary cavalry man. In Ciry itself there was no one. Half-way up the Ciry hill, a sort of dry watercourse, I ran into some cavalry and learnt that the Germans were holding the Aisne in unexpected strength. I had all but ridden round and in front of our own cavalry outposts.

Two miles farther back I found Huggie and one of our brigades. We had a bit of bully and biscuit under cover of a haystack, then we borrowed some glasses and watched bodies of Germans on the hills the other side of the Aisne. It was raining very fast. There was no decent cover, so we sat on the leeward side of a mound of sand.

When we awoke the sun was setting gorgeously. Away to the west in the direction of Soissons there was a tremendous cannonade. On the hills opposite little points of flame showed that the Germans were replying. On our right some infantry were slowly advancing in extended order through a dripping turnip-field.

The Battle of the Aisne had begun.

We were wondering what to do when we were commandeered to take a message down that precipitous hill of Ciry to some cavalry. It was now quite dark and still raining. We had no carbide, and my carburetter had jibbed, so we decided to stop at Ciry for the night. At the inn we found many drinks—particularly some wonderful cherry brandy—and a friendly motor-cyclist who told us of a billet that an officer was probably going to leave. We went there. Our host was an old soldier, so, after his wife had hung up what clothes we dared take off to dry by a red-hot stove, he gave us some supper of stewed game and red wine, then made us cunning beds with straw, pillows, and blankets. Too tired to thank him we dropped asleep.

That, though we did not know it then, was the last night of our little Odyssey. We had been advancing or retiring without a break since my tragic farewell to Nadine. We had been riding all day and often all night. But those were heroic days, and now as I write this in our comfortable slack winter quarters, I must confess—I would give anything to have them all over again. Now we motor-cyclists are middle-aged warriors. Adventures are work. Experiences are a routine. Then, let's be sentimental, we were young.



CHAPTER VII.

THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE.

I'm going to start by giving you an account of what we thought of the military situation during the great marches and the battle of the Aisne—for my own use. What happened we shall be able to look up afterwards in some lumbersome old history, should we forget, but, unless I get down quickly what we thought, it will disappear in after-knowledge.

You will remember how the night we arrived on the Aisne Huggie and I stretched ourselves on a sand-heap at the side of the road—just above Ciry—and watched dim columns of Germans crawling like grey worms up the slopes the other side of the valley. We were certain that the old Division was still in hot cry on the heels of a rapidly retreating foe. News came—I don't know how: you never do—that our transport and ammunition were being delayed by the fearsome and lamentable state of the roads. But the cavalry was pushing on ahead, and tired infantry were stumbling in extended order through the soaked fields on either side of us. There was hard gunnery well into the red dusk. Right down the valley came the thunder of it, and we began to realise that divisions, perhaps even corps, had come up on either flank.

The ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had hauled me out of my shrine into the rain that afternoon, made me understand there was a great and unknown number of French on our left. From the Order before the Marne I had learnt that a French Army had turned the German right, but the first news I had had of French on our own right was when one staff-officer said in front of me that the French away to the east had been held up. That was at Doue.

Our retreat had been solitary. The French, everybody thought, had left us in the lurch at Mons and again at Le Cateau, when the cavalry we knew to be there refused to help us. For all we knew the French Army had been swept off the face of the earth. We were just retiring, and retiring before three or four times our own numbers. We were not even supported by the 1st Corps on our right. It was smashed, and had all it could do to get itself away. We might have been the Ten Thousand.

But the isolation of our desperate retreat dismayed nobody, for we all had an unconquerable belief in the future. There must be some French somewhere, and in spite—as we thought then—of our better judgments, we stuck to the story that was ever being circulated: "We are luring the Germans into a trap." It was impressed upon us, too, by "the Div." that both at Mons and Le Cateau we were strategically victorious. We had given the Germans so hard a knock that they could not pursue us at once; we had covered the retirement of the 1st Corps; we had got away successfully ourselves. We were sullen and tired victors, never defeated. If we retreated, it was for a purpose. If we advanced, the Germans were being crushed.

The Germans thought we were beaten, because they didn't realise we knew we were victorious the whole time.

I do not say that we were always monotonously cheerful. The night after Le Cateau we all thought the game was up,—until the morning, when cheerfulness came with the sun. Then we sighed with relief and remembered a little bitterly that we were "luring the Germans on."

Many a time I have come across isolated units in hot corners who did not see a way out. Yet if a battery or a battalion were hard hit, the realisation of local defeat was always accompanied by a fervent faith that "the old Fifth" was doing well. Le Cateau is a victory in the soldier's calendar.

Le Cateau and La Bassee, It jolly well serves them right.

We had been ten days or more on the Aisne before we grasped that the force opposite us was not merely a dogged, well-entrenched rearguard, but a section of the German line.

Soon after we arrived a French cavalry officer had ridden into D.H.Q., and after his departure it was freely rumoured that he had ridden right round the German position. News began to trickle in from either flank. Our own attacks ceased, and we took up a defensive position. It was the beginning of trench-warfare, though owing to the nature of the country there were few trenches. Then we heard vaguely that the famous series of enveloping movements had begun, but by this time the Division was tired to death, and the men were craving for a rest.

Strategy in the ranks—it was elementary stuff pieced vaguely together. But perhaps it will interest you at home to know what we thought out here on this great little stage. What we did you have heard. Still, here is the play as we acted in it.

* * * * *

Along the Aisne the line of our Division stretched from Venizel to the bridge of Conde. You must not think of the river as running through a gorge or as meandering along the foot of slopes rising directly from the river bank. On the southern side lie the Heights of Champagne, practically a tableland. From the river this tableland looks like a series of ridges approaching the valley at an angle. Between the foothills and the river runs the Soissons-Rheims road, good pave, and for the most part covered by trees. To the north there is a distance of two miles or so from the river to the hills.

Perhaps I shall make this clearer if I take the three main points about the position.

* * * * *

First. If you are going to put troops on the farther side of the river you must have the means of crossing it, and you must keep those means intact. The bridges running from left to right of our line were at Venizel, Missy, Sermoise, and Conde. The first three were blown up. Venizel bridge was repaired sufficiently to allow of light traffic to cross, and fifty yards farther down a pontoon-bridge was built fit for heavy traffic. Missy was too hot: we managed an occasional ferry. I do not think we ever had a bridge at Sermoise. Once when in search of the C.R.E. I watched a company of the K.O.S.B. being ferried across under heavy rifle fire. The raft was made of ground-sheets stuffed, I think, with straw. Conde bridge the Germans always held, or rather neither of us held it, but the Germans were very close to it and allowed nobody to cross. Just on our side of the bridge was a car containing two dead officers. No one could reach them. There they sat until we left, ghastly sentinels, and for all I know they sit there still.

Now all communication with troops on the north bank of the river had to pass over these bridges, of which Venizel alone was comparatively safe. If ever these bridges should be destroyed, the troops on the north bank would be irrevocably cut off from supplies of every sort and from orders. I often used to wonder what would have happened if the Germans had registered accurately upon the bridges, or if the river had risen and swept the bridges away.

Second. There was an open belt between the river and the villages which we occupied—Bucy-le-Long, St Marguerite, Missy. The road that wound through this belt was without the veriest trace of cover—so much so, that for a considerable time all communication across it was carried on by despatch riders, for a cable could never be laid. So if our across-the-river brigades had ever been forced to retire in daylight they would have been compelled, first to retire two miles over absolutely open country, and then to cross bridges of which the positions were known with tolerable accuracy to the Germans.

Third. On the northern bank four or five spurs came down into the plain, parallel with each other and literally at right angles to the river. The key to these was a spur known as the Chivres hill or plateau. This we found impregnable to the attack of two brigades. It was steep and thickly wooded. Its assailants, too, could be heavily enfiladed from either flank.

* * * * *

Now you have the position roughly. The tactics of our Division were simple. In the early days, when we thought that we had merely a determined rearguard in front of us, we attacked. Bridges—you will remember the tale—were most heroically built. Two brigades (14th and 15th) crossed the river and halted at the very foot of the hills, where they were almost under cover from alien fire. The third brigade was on their right in a position I will describe later.

Well, the two brigades attacked, and attacked with artillery support, but they could not advance. That was the first phase. Then orders came that we were to act on the defensive, and finally of our three brigades, one was on the right, one across the river, and one in a second line of trenches on the southern bank of the river acted as divisional reserve. That for us was the battle of the Aisne. It was hard fighting all through.[13]

Under these conditions there was plentiful work for despatch riders. I am going to try and describe it for you.

When D.H.Q. are stationary, the work of despatch riders is of two kinds. First of all you have to find the positions of the units to which you are sent. Often the Signal Office gives you the most exiguous information. "The 105th Brigade is somewhere near Ciry," or "The Div. Train is at a farm just off the Paris-Bordeaux" road. Starting out with these explicit instructions, it is very necessary to remember that they may be wrong and are probably misleading. That is not the fault of the Signal Office. A Unit changes ground, say from a farm on the road to a farm off the road. These two farms are so near each other that there is no need to inform the Div. just at present of this change of residence. The experienced despatch rider knows that, if he is told the 105th Brigade is at 1904 Farm, the Brigade is probably at 1894 Farm, half a mile away.

Again, a despatch rider is often sent out after a unit has moved and before the message announcing the move has "come through" to the Division.

When the Division is advancing or retiring this exploration-work is the only work. To find a given brigade, take the place at which it was last reported at the Signal Office and assume it was never there. Prefer the information you get from your fellow despatch riders. Then find out the road along which the brigade is said to be moving. If the brigade may be in action, take a road that will bring you to the rear of the brigade. If there are troops in front of the brigade, strike for the head of it. It is always quicker to ride from van to rear of a brigade than from rear to van.

The second kind of work consists in riding along a road already known. A clever despatch rider may reduce this to a fine art. He knows exactly at which corner he is likely to be sniped, and hurries accordingly. He remembers to a yard where the sentries are. If the road is under shell fire, he recalls where the shells usually fall, the interval between the shells and the times of shelling. For there is order in everything, and particularly in German gunnery. Lastly, he does not race along with nose on handle-bar. That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from Corps or Army Headquarters. The experienced motor-cyclist sits up and takes notice the whole time. He is able at the end of his ride to give an account of all that he has seen on the way.

D.H.Q. were at Serches, a wee village in a hollow at the head of a valley. So steeply did the hill rise out of the hollow to the north that the village was certainly in dead ground. A fine road went to the west along the valley for three miles or so to the Soissons-Rheims road. For Venizel you crossed the main road and ran down a little hill through a thick wood, terribly dark of nights, to the village; you crossed the bridge and opened the throttle.

The first time I rode north from Venizel, Moulders was with me. On the left a few hundred yards away an ammunition section that had crossed by the pontoon was at full gallop. I was riding fast—the road was loathsomely open—but not too fast, because it was greasy. A shell pitched a couple of hundred yards off the road, and then others, far enough away to comfort me.

A mile on the road bends sharp left and right over the railway and past a small factory of some sort. The Germans loved this spot, and would pitch shells on it with a lamentable frequency. Soon it became too much of a routine to be effective. On shelling-days three shells would be dropped one after another, an interval of three minutes, and then another three. This we found out and rode accordingly.

A hundred yards past the railway you ride into Bucy-le-Long and safety. The road swings sharp to the right, and there are houses all the way to St Marguerite.

Once I was riding with despatches from D.H.Q. It was a heavy, misty day. As I sprinted across the open I saw shrapnel over St Marguerite, but I could not make out whether it was German shrapnel bursting over the village or our shrapnel bursting over the hills beyond. I slowed down.

Now, as I have told you, on a motor-cycle, if you are going rapidly, you cannot hear bullets or shells coming or even shells bursting unless they are very near. Running slowly on top, with the engine barely turning over, you can hear everything. So I went slow and listened. Through the air came the sharp "woop-wing" of shrapnel bursting towards you, the most devilish sound of all. Some prefer the shriek of shrapnel to the dolorous wail and deep thunderous crash of high explosive. But nothing frightens me so much as the shrapnel-shriek.[14]

Well, as I passed the little red factory I noticed that the shrapnel was bursting right over the village, which meant that as 80 per cent of shrapnel bullets shoot forward the village was comparatively safe. As a matter of fact the street was full of ricochetting trifles.

Transport was drawn up well under cover of the wall and troops were marching in single file as near to the transport as possible. Two horses were being led down the middle of the street. Just before they reached me the nose of one of the horses suddenly was gashed and a stream of blood poured out. Just a ricochet, and it decided me. Despatch riders have to take care of themselves when H.Q. are eight miles away by road and there is no wire. I put my motor-cycle under cover and walked the remaining 200 yards.

Coming back I heard some shouting, a momentary silence, then a flare of the finest blasphemy. I turned the bend to see an officer holding his severed wrist and cursing. He was one of those dashing fellows. He had ridden alongside the transport swearing at the men to get a move on. He had held up his arm to give the signal when a ricochet took his hand off cleanly. His men said not a word,—sat with an air of calm disapproval like Flemish oxen.

It was one in the morning and dark on the road when I took my next despatch to St Marguerite. Just out of Bucy I passed Moulders, who shouted, "Ware wire and horses." Since last I had seen it the village had been unmercifully shelled. Where the transport had been drawn up there were shattered waggons. Strewn over the road were dead horses, of all carcasses the most ludicrously pitiful, and wound in and out of them, a witches' web, crawled the wire from the splintered telegraph posts. There was not a sound in the village except the gentle thump of my engine. I was forced to pull up, that I might more clearly see my way between two horses. My engine silent, I could only hear a little whisper from the house opposite and a dripping that I did not care to understand. Farther on a house had fallen half across the road. I scarcely dared to start my engine again in the silence of this desolate destruction. Then I could not, because the dripping was my petrol and not the gore of some slaughtered animal. A flooded carburettor is a nuisance in an unsavoury village.

At the eastern end of St Marguerite the road turns sharply south. This is "Hell's Own Corner." From it there is a full and open view of the Chivres valley, and conversely those in the Chivres valley can see the corner very clearly. When we were acting on the offensive, a section of 4.5 in. howitzers were put into position just at the side of the road by the corner. This the Germans may have discovered, or perhaps it was only that the corner presented a tempting target, for they shelled to destruction everything within a hundred yards. The howitzers were rapidly put out of action though not destroyed, and a small orchard just behind them was ploughed, riven, and scarred with high explosive and shrapnel.

The day St Marguerite was shelled one of the two brigadiers determined to shift his headquarters to a certain farm. N'Soon and Grimers were attached to the brigade at the time. "Headquarters" came to the corner. N'Soon and Grimers were riding slowly in front. They heard a shell coming. Grimers flung himself off his bicycle and dropped like a stone. N'Soon opened his throttle and darted forward, foolishly. The shell exploded. Grimers' bicycle was covered with branches and he with earth and dust. N'Soon for some reason was not touched.

The General and his staff were shelled nearly the whole way to the farm, but nobody was hit. The brigade veterinary officer had a theory that the safest place was next the General, because generals were rarely hit, but that day his faith was shaken, and the next day—I will tell you the story—it tottered to destruction.

I had come through St Marguerite the night after the brigade had moved. Of course I was riding without a light. I rounded Hell's Own Corner carefully, very frightened of the noise my engine was making. A little farther on I dismounted and stumbled to the postern-gate of a farm. I opened it and went in. A sentry challenged me in a whisper and handed me over to an orderly, who led me over the black bodies of men sleeping to a lean-to where the General sat with a sheltered light, talking to his staff. He was tired and anxious. I delivered my despatch, took the receipted envelope and stumbled back to the postern-gate. Silently I hauled my motor-cycle inside, then started on my tramp to the General who had moved.

After Hell's Own Corner the road swings round again to the east, and runs along the foot of the Chivres hill to Missy. A field or so away to the left is a thick wood inhabited for the most part by German snipers. In the preceding days N'Soon and Sadders had done fine work along this road in broad daylight, carrying despatches to Missy.

I was walking, because no motor-cyclist goes by night to a battalion, and the noise of a motor-cycle would have advertised the presence of brigade headquarters somewhere on the road. It was a joyous tramp of two miles into the village of dark, ominous houses. I found a weary subaltern who put me on my way, a pitch-black lane between high walls. At the bottom of it I stepped upon an officer, who lay across the path asleep with his men. So tired was he that he did not wake. On over a field to the farm. I delivered my despatch to the Brigade-Major, whose eyes were glazed with want of sleep. He spoke to me in the pitiful monotone of the unutterably weary. I fed off bully, hot potatoes, bread and honey, then turned in.

In the morning I had just finished my breakfast when a shell exploded fifty yards behind the farm, and others followed. "Headquarters" turned out, and we crawled along a shallow ditch at the side of a rough country road until we were two hundred yards from the farm. We endeavoured to get into communication with the other brigade by flag, but after the first message a shell dropped among the farther signallers and we saw no more of them.

Shells began to drop near us. One fellow came uncomfortably close. It covered us with dirt as we "froze" to the bottom of the ditch. A little scrap of red-hot metal flew into the ground between me and the signal sergeant in front of me. I grabbed it, but dropped it because it was so hot; it was sent to the signal sergeant's wife and not to you.

We crawled a hundred yards farther along to a place where the ditch was a little deeper, and we were screened by some bushes, but I think the General's red hat must have been marked down, because for the next hour we lay flat listening to the zip-zip of bullets that passed barely overhead.

Just before we moved the Germans started to shell Missy with heavy howitzers. Risking the bullets, we saw the village crowned with great lumps of smoke. Our men poured out of it in more or less extended order across the fields. I saw them running, poor little khaki figures, and dropping like rabbits to the rifles of the snipers in the wood.

Two hundred yards south of the St Marguerite-Missy road—that is, between the road and the ditch in which we were lying—there is a single line of railway on a slight embankment. Ten men in a bunch made for the cover it afforded. One little man with an enormous pack ran a few yards in front. Seven reached the top of the embankment, then three almost simultaneously put their hands before their eyes and dropped across the rails. The little man ran on until he reached us, wide-eyed, sweaty, and breathing in short gasps. The Brigade-Major shouted to him not to come along the road but to make across the field. Immediately the little man heard the voice of command he halted, stood almost to attention, and choked out, "But they're shelling us"—then, without another word he turned off across the fields and safely reached cover.

In the ditch we were comfortable if confined, and I was frightened when the order came down, "Pass the word for the motor-cyclist." I crawled up to the General, received my despatch, and started walking across the field. Then I discovered there is a great difference between motor-cycling under rifle fire, when you can hear only the very close ones, and walking across a heavy turnip-field when you can hear all. Two-thirds of the way a sharp zip at the back of my neck and a remembrance of the three men stretched across the rails decided me. I ran.

At the farm where the other brigade headquarters were stationed I met Sadders with a despatch for the general I had just left. When I explained to him where and how to go he blenched a little, and the bursting of a shell a hundred yards or so away made him jump, but he started off at a good round pace. You must remember we were not used to carrying despatches on foot.

I rode lazily through St Marguerite and Bucy-le-Long, and turned the corner on to the open stretch. There I waited to allow a battery that was making the passage to attract as many shells as it liked. The battery reached Venizel with the loss of two horses. Then, just as I was starting off, a shell plunged into the ground by the little red factory. As I knew it to be the first of three I waited again.

At that moment Colonel Seely's car came up, and Colonel Seely himself got out and went forward with me to see if the road had been damaged. For three minutes the road should have been safe, but the German machine became human, and in a couple of minutes Colonel Seely and I returned covered with rich red plough and with a singing in our ears. I gave the Colonel a couple of hundred yards start, and we sprinted across into the safe hands of Venizel.

Beyond Missy, which we intermittently occupied, our line extended along the foot of the hills and crossed the Aisne about three-quarters of a mile short of Conde bridge—and that brings me to a tale.

One night we were healthily asleep after a full day. I had been "next for duty" since ten o'clock, but at two I began to doze, because between two and five there is not often work for the despatch rider. At three I awoke to much shouting and anxious hullabaloo. The intelligence officer was rousing us hurriedly—"All motor-cyclists turn out. Pack up kit. Seven wanted at once in the Signal Office."

This meant, firstly, that Divisional Headquarters were to move at once, in a hurry, and by night; secondly, that the same despatch was to be sent simultaneously to every unit in the Division. I asked somebody to get my kit together, and rushed upstairs to the Signal Office. There on the table I saw the fateful wire.

"Germans entrenched south side of Conde bridge and are believed to be crossing in large numbers." I was given a copy of this message to take to the 15th Brigade, then at St Marguerite. Away on the road at full speed I thought out what this meant. The enemy had broken through our line—opposite Conde there were no reserves—advance parties of the Germans might even now be approaching headquarters—large numbers would cut us off from the Division on our right and would isolate the brigade to which I was going; it would mean another Le Cateau.

I tore along to Venizel, and slowing down at the bridge shouted the news to the officer in charge—full speed across the plain to Bucy, and caring nothing for the sentries' shouts, on to St Marguerite. I dashed into the general's bedroom and aroused him. Almost before I had arrived the general and his brigade-major—both in pyjamas—were issuing commands and writing messages. Sleepy and amazed orderlies were sent out at the double. Battalion commanders and the C.R.E. were summoned.

I started back for D.H.Q. with an acknowledgment, and rattling through the village came out upon the plain.

Over Conde bridge an ochreous, heavy dawn broke sullenly. There was no noise of firing to tell me that the men of our right brigade were making a desperate resistance to a fierce advance. A mile from Serches I passed a field-ambulance loaded up for instant flight; the men were standing about in little groups talking together, as if without orders. At Headquarters I found that a despatch rider had been sent hot-foot to summon two despatch riders, who that night were with the corps, and others to every unit. Everybody carried the same command—load up and be ready to move at a moment's notice.

Orders to move were never sent. Our two ghastly sentinels still held the bridge. It was a SCARE.

The tale that we heard at the time was the tale of a little German firing—a lost patrol of ours, returning by an unauthorised road, mistaken in the mist for Germans—a verbal message that had gone wrong. As for the lieutenant who—it was said—first started the hare, his name was burnt with blasphemy for days and days. The only men who came out of it well were some of our cyclists, who, having made their nightly patrol up to the bridge, returned just before dawn to D.H.Q. and found the Division trying to make out that it had not been badly frightened.

I did not hear what really happened at the bridge that night until I published my paper, "The Battle of the Aisne," in the May 'Blackwood.' Here is the story as I had it from the officer principally concerned:—

Conde bridge was under our control by shell-fire alone, so that we were obliged to patrol its unpleasant neighbourhood by night. For this purpose an "officer's patrol" was organised (in addition to the "standing patrol" provided by the Cyclists) and supplied every night by different battalions. So many conflicting reports were received nightly about the bridge that the officer who told me the story was appointed Brigade Patrolling Officer.

He established himself in a certain wood, and on the night in question worked right up beyond Conde bridge—until he found a burning house about 200 yards beyond the bridge on the south side of it. In the flare of the house he was surprised to discover Germans entrenched in an old drain on the British side of the river. He had unknowingly passed this body of the enemy.

He heard, too, a continuous stream of Germans in the transport marching through the woods towards the bridge. Working his way back, he reported the matter personally to the Brigadier of the 13th, who sent the famous message to the Division.

It appears that the Germans had come down to fill their water-carts that night, and to guard against a surprise attack had pushed forward two platoons across the bridge into the drain. Unfortunately one of our patrols disobeyed its orders that night and patrolled a forbidden stretch of road. The officer shot two of these men in the dark.

Three days later the outpost company on Vesle bridge of the Aisne was surrounded, and, later still, Conde bridge passed out of our artillery control, and was finally crossed by the Germans.

I have written of this famous scare of Conde bridge in detail, not because it was characteristic, but because it was exceptional. It is the only scare we ever had in our Division, and amongst those who were on the Aisne, and are still with the Division, it has become a phrase for encouragement—"Only another Conde."

During the first days on this monotonous river, the days when we attacked, the staff of our right brigade advanced for a time into open country and took cover behind the right haystack of three. To this brigade Huggie took a message early one morning, and continued to take messages throughout the day because—this was his excuse—he knew the road. It was not until several months later that I gathered by chance what had happened on that day, for Huggie, quite the best despatch rider in our Division, would always thwart my journalistic curiosity by refusing resolutely to talk about himself. The rest of us swopped yarns of an evening.

These haystacks were unhealthy: so was the approach to them. First one haystack was destroyed. The brigade went to the next. This second was blown to bits. The staff took refuge behind the third. In my letters I have told you of the good things the other despatch riders in our Division have done, but to keep up continuous communication all day with this be-shelled and refugee brigade was as fine a piece of despatch riding as any. It received its proper reward, as you know.

Afterwards the brigade emigrated to a hillside above Ciry, and remained there. Now the German gunner in whose sector Ciry was included should not be dismissed with a word. He was a man of uncertain temper and accurate shooting, for in the first place he would shell Ciry for a few minutes at any odd time, and in the second he knocked a gun out in three shells and registered accurately, when he pleased, upon the road that led up a precipitous hill to the edge of the Serches hollow. On this hill he smashed some regimental transport to firewood and killed a dozen horses, and during one of his sudden shellings of the village blew a house to pieces just as a despatch rider, who had been told the village that morning was healthy, rode by.

You must not think that we were for ever scudding along, like the typical "motor-cyclist scout" in the advertisements, surrounded with shells. There was many a dull ride even to Bucy-le-Long. An expedition to the Div. Train (no longer an errant and untraceable vagabond) was safe and produced jam. A ride to Corps Headquarters was only dangerous because of the innumerable and bloodthirsty sentries surrounding that stronghold.

One afternoon a report came through to the Division that a motor-car lay derelict at Missy. So "the skipper" called for two volunteers who should be expert mechanics. Divisional Signal companies were not then provided with cars, and if the C.O. wished to go out to a brigade, which might be up to or over eight miles away, he was compelled to ride a horse, experiment with a motor-cycle that was probably badly missed by the despatch riders, or borrow one of the staff cars. Huggie and the elder Cecil volunteered.

As soon as it was dusk they rode down to Sermoise, and crossing by the ferry—it was perilous in the dark—made their way with difficulty across country to Missy, which was then almost in front of our lines. They found the car, and examining it discovered that to outward appearance it was sound,—a great moment when after a turn or two of the handle the engine roared into the darkness, but the noise was alarming enough because the Germans were none too far away.

They started on their journey home—by St Marguerite and Venizel. Just after they had left the village the beam of an alien searchlight came sweeping along the road. Before the glare had discovered their nakedness they had pulled the car to the side of the road under the shelter of the hedge nearest the Germans, and jumping down had taken cover. By all the rules of the game it was impossible to drive a car that was not exactly silent along the road from Missy to Hell's Own Corner. The searchlight should have found them, and the fire of the German snipers should have done the rest. But their luck was in, and they made no mistakes. Immediately the beam had passed they leaped on to the car and tore scathless into St Marguerite and so back to the Division.

After its capture the car was exhibited with enormous pride to all that passed by. We should not have been better pleased if we had captured the whole Prussian Guard. For prisoners disappear and cannot always be shown to prove the tale. The car was an [Greek: aei ktema].

In the morning we rode down into Sermoise for the motor-cycles. Sermoise had been shelled to pieces, but I shall never forget a brave and obstinate inhabitant who, when a shell had gone through his roof and demolished the interior of his house, began to patch his roof with bully-tins and biscuit-tins that he might at least have shelter from the rain.

Elated with our capture of the car we scented greater victories. We heard of a motor-boat on the river near Missy, and were filled with visions of an armoured motor-boat, stuffed with machine-guns, plying up and down the Aisne. Huggie and another made the excursion. The boat was in an exposed and altogether unhealthy position, but they examined it, and found that there was no starting-handle. In the village forge, which was very completely fitted up, they made one that did not fit, and then another, but however much they coaxed, the engine would not start. So regretfully they left it.

To these adventures there was a quiet background of uncomfortable but pleasant existence. Life on the Aisne was like a "reading party"—only instead of working at our books we worked at soldiering.

The night that Huggie and I slept down at Ciry, the rest of the despatch riders, certain that we were taken, encamped at Ferme d'Epitaphe, for the flooded roads were impassable. There we found them in the morning, and discovered they had prepared the most gorgeous stew of all my recollection.

Now, to make a good stew is a fine art, for a stew is not merely a conglomeration of bully and vegetables and water boiled together until it looks nice. First the potatoes must be cut out to a proper size and put in; of potatoes there cannot be too many. As for the vegetables, a superfluity of carrots is a burden, and turnips should be used with a sparing hand. A full flavour of leek is a great joy. When the vegetables are nearly boiled, the dixie should be carefully examined by all to see if it is necessary to add water. If in doubt spare the water, for a rich thick gravy is much to be desired. Add bully, and get your canteens ready.

This particular stew made by Orr was epic. At all other good stews it was recalled and discussed, but never did a stew come up to the stew that we so scrupulously divided among us on the bright morning of Sept. 12, 1914, at Ferme d'Epitaphe, above Serches.

Later in the day we took over our billet, a large bicycle shed behind the school in which D.H.Q. were installed. The front of it was open, the floor was asphalt, the roof dripped, and we shared it with the Divisional Cyclists. So close were we packed that you could not turn in your sleep without raising a storm of curses, and if you were called out of nights you were compelled to walk boldly over prostrate bodies, trusting to luck that you did not step on the face of a man who woke suddenly and was bigger than yourself.

On the right of our dwelling was a little shed that was once used as a guard-room. A man and woman were brought in under suspicion of espionage. The woman was put in the shed. There she shrieked the night through, shouted for her husband (he had an ugly-sounding name that we could not understand), and literally tore her hair. The language of the Cyclists was an education even to the despatch riders, who once had been told by their Quartermaster-Sergeant that they left the cavalry standing. Finally, we petitioned for her removal, and once again slept peacefully. The Court of Inquiry found the couple were not spies, but unmarried. So it married them and let them go.

The Cyclists were marvellous and indefatigable makers of tea. At any unearthly hour you might be gently shaken by the shoulder and a voice would whisper—

"'Ave a drop o' tea—real 'ot and plenty o' sugar."

Never have I come back from a night ride without finding a couple of cyclists squatting out in the gloom round a little bright fire of their own making, with some fine hot tea. Wherever they go may they never want a drink!

And never shall I forget that fine bit of roast pork my friend Sergeant Croucher insisted on sharing with me one evening! I had not tasted fresh meat for weeks.

George was our unofficial Quartermaster. He was and is a great man, always cheerful, able to coax bread, vegetables, wine, and other luxuries out of the most hardened old Frenchwoman; and the French, though ever pathetically eager to do anything for us, always charged a good round price. Candles were a great necessity, and could not be bought, but George always had candles for us. I forget at the moment whether they were for "Le General French, qui arrive," or "Les pauvres, pauvres, blesses." On two occasions George's genius brought him into trouble, for military law consists mainly of the commandment—

"Thou shalt not allow thyself to be found out."

We were short of firewood. So George discovered that his engine wanted a little tuning, and started out on a voyage of discovery. Soon he came upon a heap of neatly cut, neatly piled wood. He loaded up until he heard shouts, then fled. That night we had a great fire, but in the morning came tribulation. The shouts were the shouts of the C.R.E. and the wood was an embryonic bridge. Severely reprimanded.

Then there was the Honey Question. There were bees in the village and we had no honey. The reputation of George was at stake. So one night we warily and silently approached some hives with candles; unfortunately we were interfered with by the military police. Still an expedition into the hedgerows and woods always had an excuse in time of war, and we made it.

The village of Acy, high on the hill above the road to Venizel, was the richest hunting-ground. First, there was a bread-shop open at certain hours. George was often late, and, disdaining to take his place in the long line of those who were not despatch riders, would march straight in and demand bread for one of his two worthy charities. When these were looked upon with suspicion he engineered a very friendly understanding with the baker's wife.

Then there was a dark little shop where you could buy good red wine, and beyond it a farmer with vegetables to sell. But his greatest find was the chateau, which clung to the edge of the hill and overlooked the valley of the Aisne to Conde Fort and the Hill of Chivres.

Searching one morning amongst a pile of captured and derelict stuff we discovered a canvas bath. Now, not one of us had had a bath since Havre, so we made arrangements. Three of us took the bath up to the chateau, then inhabited by a caretaker and his wife. They brought us great pails of hot water, and for the first time in a month we were clean. Then we had tea and talked about the Germans who had passed through. The German officer, the old woman told us, had done them no harm, though he had seized everything without paying a sou. Just before he left bad news was brought to him. He grew very angry, and shouted to her as he rode off—

"You shall suffer for this when we return;" but she laughed and shouted back at him, mocking—

"When you return!"

And then the English came.

After tea we smoked our pipes in the terraced garden, watched the Germans shelling one of our aeroplanes, examined the German lines, and meditated in safety on the war just like newspaper correspondents.

It was in Serches itself that George received the surprise of his life. He was after potatoes, and seeing a likely-looking old man pass, D.H.Q. ran after him. In his best French—"Avez-vous pommes-de-terre a vendre?" The old man turned round, smiled, and replied in broadest Yorkshire, "Wanting any 'taters?" George collapsed.

It seems that the old fellow had settled in Serches years and years before. He had a very pretty daughter, who spoke a delectable mixture of Yorkshire and the local dialect. Of course she was suspected of being a spy—in fact, probably was—so the military police were set to watch her,—a job, I gathered later from one of them, much to their liking.

Our life on the Aisne, except for little exciting episodes, was restful enough. We averaged, I should think, a couple of day messages and one each night, though there were intermittent periods of high pressure. We began to long for the strenuous first days, and the Skipper, finding that we were becoming unsettled, put us to drill in our spare time and gave some of us riding lessons. Then came rumours of a move to a rest-camp, probably back at Compiegne. The 6th Division arrived to take over from us, or so we were told, and Rich and Cuffe came over with despatches. We had not seen them since Chatham. They regarded us as veterans, and we told them the tale.

One afternoon some artillery of this division came through the valley. They were fine and fresh, but not a single one of us believed they equalled ours. There was a line of men to watch them pass, and everybody discovered a friend until practically at every stirrup there was a man inquiring after a pal, answering questions, and asking what they thought in England, and how recruiting was going. The air rang with crude, great-hearted jokes. We motor-cyclists stood aside just criticising the guns and men and horses. We felt again that shyness we had felt at Chatham in front of the professional soldier. Then we remembered that we had been through the Retreat and the Advance, and went back to tea content.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] I do not pretend for a moment that all these details are meticulously accurate. They are what I knew or thought I knew at the time this was written.

[14] Curiously enough, months after this was written the author was wounded by shrapnel.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE MOVE TO THE NORTH.

We left Serches at dusk with little regret and pushed on over the hill past Ferme d'Epitaphe of gluttonous memory, past the Headquarter clerks, who were jogging peacefully along on bicycles, down the other side of the hill, and on to the village of Maast.

Headquarters were in a curious farm. One side of its court was formed by a hill in which there were caves—good shelter for the men. There was just one run that night to Corps H.Q. in a chateau three miles farther on.

The morning was clear and sunny. A good, lazy breakfast preluded a great wash. Then we chatted discreetly with a Paris midinette at the gate of the farm. Though not in Flanders, she was of the Flemish type,—bright colouring, high cheek-bones, dark eyes. On these little social occasions—they came all too rarely; that is why I always mention them—there was much advantage in being only a corporal. Officers, even Staff Officers, as they passed threw at us a look of admiration and envy. A salute was cheap at the price.

In the afternoon there was a run, and when I returned I found that the rest-camp rumour had been replaced by two others—either we were going into action immediately a little farther along the line beyond Soissons, or we were about to make a dash to Ostend for the purpose of outflanking the Germans.

We moved again at dusk, and getting clear of the two brigades with H.Q. rode rapidly twenty miles across country, passing over the road by which we had advanced, to Longpont, a big dark chateau set in a wood and with a French sentry at the gate. Our third brigade was trekking away into the darkness as we came in. We slept in a large room on straw mattresses—very comforting to the bones.

The morning was again gorgeous, and again we breakfasted late and well. The chateau we discovered to be monumental, and beside it, set in a beautiful garden, was a ruined chapel, where a service was held—the first we had been able to attend since the beginning of the war.

Our host, an old man, thin and lithe, and dressed in shiny black, came round during the day to see that we had all we needed. We heard a tale—I do not know how true it was—that the Crown Prince had stayed at the chateau. He had drunk much ancient and good wine, and what he had not drunk he had taken away with him, together with some objects of art. The chateau was full of good things.

During the day I had a magnificent run of forty miles over straight dry roads to Hartennes, where, if you will remember, that great man, Sergeant Croucher of the cyclists, had given us tea, and on to Chacrise and Maast. It was the first long and open run I had had since the days of the retreat, when starting from La Pommeraye I had ridden through the forest to Compiegne in search of the Divisional Train.

Just after I had returned we started off again—at dusk. I was sent round to a place, the name of which I cannot remember, to a certain division; then I struck north along a straight road through the forest to Villers-Cotterets. The town was crammed with French motor-lorries and crowded with French troops, who greeted me hilariously as I rode through to Veze.

There we slept comfortably in the lodge of the chateau, all, that is, except Grimers, who had been seized with a puncture just outside the main hotel in Villers-Cotterets.

In the morning I had a fine run to a brigade at Bethancourt, the little village, you will remember, where we lunched off an excellent omelette, and convinced the populace, with the help of our host, that the Germans would come no farther.

While I was away the rest discovered some excellent white wine in the cellar of the lodge, and before starting again at dusk we made a fine meal. Cecil and I remained after the others had gone, and when the wife of the lodge-keeper came in and expressed her utter detestation of all troops, we told her that we were shedding our blood for France, and offered her forgetfully a glass of her own good wine.

That night we slept at Bethisy St Martin. On the retreat, you will remember, the lord of the chateau had given some of the despatch riders dinner, before they learnt that D.H.Q. had been diverted to Crecy-en-Valois. He recognised us with joy, allowed us to take things from the kitchen, and in the morning hunted out for us a tennis set. Four of us who were not on duty played a great game on a very passable gravel court.

We now heard that "the Division" was convinced that we were going to make a dash for Ostend, and rumour seemed to crystallise into truth when orders came that we were to entrain that night at Pont St Maxence.

The despatch riders rode ahead of the column, and received a joyous welcome in the town. We stalked bravely into a cafe, and drank loud and hearty toasts with some friendly but rather drunk French soldiers. Gascons they were, and d'Artagnans all, from their proper boasting—the heart of a lion and the cunning of a fox, they said. One of us was called into a more sober chamber to drink ceremonious toasts in champagne with their officers. In the street another of us—I would not give even his initial—selecting the leading representative of young, demure, and ornamental maidenhood, embraced her in the middle of the most admiring crowd I have ever seen, while the rest of us explained to a half-angry mother that her daughter should be proud and happy—as indeed she was—to represent the respectable and historic town of Pont St Maxence.

Then, amidst shrieks and cheers and cries of "Brave Tommy" and "We love you," the despatch riders of the finest and most famous of all Divisions rode singing to the station, where we slept peacefully on straw beside a large fire until the train came in and the Signal Company arrived.

Our entraining at Pont St Maxence began with a carouse and ended with a cumulative disappointment. In the middle was the usual wait, a tiresome but necessary part of all military evolutions. To entrain a Signal Company sounds so simple. Here is the company—there is the train. But first comes the man-handling of cable-carts on to trucks that were built for the languid conveyance of perambulators. Then follows a little horseplay, and only those who, like myself, regard horses as unmechanical and self-willed instruments of war, know how terrifying a sight and how difficult a task the emboxing of a company's horses can be. Motor-cycles are heavy and have to be lifted, but they do not make noises and jib and rear, and look every moment as if they were going to fall backward on to the interested spectator.

We despatch riders fetched a great deal of straw and made ourselves comfortable in one of those waggons that are marked outside, with such splendid optimism—

Chevaux . . . . 8 Hommes . . . . 40-5

With our friend the Post-Sergeant and his underling there were roughly a dozen of us and no superfluity of space, but, seeing men wandering fiercely up and down the train under the command of our Sergeant-Major, we took in a H.Q. clerk. This ruffled us, but it had to be done. The Sergeant-Major came to our waggon. We stood at the door and pointed out to him that we had in our waggon not only all the despatch riders, but also the whole of the Postal and Headquarters Staffs. He said nothing to us—only told ten more men to get in. Finally we were twenty-five in all, with full equipment. Thinking of the 40-5 we settled down and managed to effect a compromise of room which, to our amazement, left us infinitely more comfortable than we had been in the III^{me} coming up from Havre to Landrecies.

The train shuffled out of the station just before dawn. We slept a bit, and then, just as it was getting light, started our pipes and began to talk of the future.

The general opinion favoured Ostend, though a sergeant hazarded that we were going to be shipped swiftly across to England to defend the East Coast. This suggestion was voted impossible and tactless—at least, we didn't put it quite like that. Ostend it was going to be—train to Abbeville, and then boat to Ostend, and a rapid march against the German flank.

The discussion was interrupted by somebody saying he had heard from somebody who had been told by his Major, that 60,000 Germans had been killed in the last two days, Von Kluck had been killed by a lucky shell, and the Crown Prince had committed suicide. We were bringing the cynicism of youth to bear on the trustfulness of a mature mercenary when the train arrived at Amiens.

Some washed. Some meditated on a train of French wounded and another train of Belgian refugees, humble and pitiful objects, very smelly. Two, not waiting for orders, rushed to the buffet and bought beer and sardines and chocolate and bread. One of these was cut off from his waggon by a long goods train that passed through, but he knew the ways of military trains, waited till the goods had passed, then ran after us and caught us up after a mile's jog-trot. The good people of Amiens, who had not so very long before been delivered from the Germans, were exceedingly affectionate, and threw us fruit, flowers, and kisses. Those under military age shrieked at the top of their shrill little trebles—

Engleesh—Tipperary—Biskeet—Biskeet—Souvenir.

We have never understood the cry of "Biskeet." The fat little fellows were obviously well nourished. Perhaps, dog-like, they buried their biscuits with a thought for the time when the English should be forgotten and hunger should take their place as something very present.

So joyously we were rushed north at about five miles an hour, or eight kilometres per hour, which sounds better. Early in the afternoon we came to Abbeville, a hot and quiet station, and, with the aid of some London Scottish, disembarked. From these Scots we learnt that the French were having a rough time just north of Arras, that train-load upon train-load of wounded had come through, that our Corps (the 2nd) was going up to help.

So even now we do not know whether we really were going to Ostend and were diverted to the La Bassee district to help the French who had got themselves into a hole, or whether Ostend was somebody's little tale.

We rode through the town to the Great Barracks, where we were given a large and clean ward. The washing arrangements were sumptuous and we had truckle-beds to sleep upon, but the sanitation, as everywhere in France, was vile. We kicked a football about on the drill-ground. Then some of us went down into the town, while the rest of us waited impatiently for them to come back, taking a despatch or two in the meanwhile.

From the despatch rider's point of view Abbeville is a large and admiring town, with good restaurants and better baths. These baths were finer than the baths of Havre—full of sweet-scented odours and the deliciously intoxicating fumes of good soap and plenteous boiling-water.

In a little restaurant we met some friends of the 3rd Division and a couple of London Scots, who were getting heartily sick of the L. of C., though taking prisoners round the outskirts of Paris had, I gather, its charm even for the most ardent warriors.

In the morning there was parade, a little football, and then a stroll into the town. I had just finished showing an Intelligence Officer how to get a belt back on to the pulley of his motor-cycle when Cecil met me and told me we were to move north that evening.

We had a delectable little tea, bought a map or two, and then strolled back to the barracks. In half an hour we were ready to move off, kit piled high upon our carriers, looking for all the world (said our C.O.) like those funny little animals that carry their houses upon their backs and live at the bottom of ponds. Indeed it was our boast that—such was our ingenuity—we were able to carry more kit than any regimental officer.

It was dusk when N'Soon and I pushed off,—we had remained behind to deal with messages that might come in foolishly after the Division had left. We took the great highroad to Calais, and, carefully passing the General, who was clattering along with his staff and an escort of Hussars, we pulled up to light our lamps at a little estaminet with glowing red blinds just like the blinds of certain hospitable taverns in the city of Oxford. The coincidence was so remarkable that we were compelled to enter.

We found a roaring, leaping log-fire, a courteous old Frenchman who drank our healths, an immense omelette, some particularly good coffee, and the other despatch riders.

That night it was freezing hard. With our chairs drawn in close to the fire, a glass of something to keep the cold out ready to hand, and pipes going strong, we felt sorry for the general and his escort who, probably with chilled lips and numbed fingers, jogged resoundingly through the village street.

Twenty minutes later we took the road, and soon, pretending that we had lost our way, again passed the general—and lost our way, or at least rode well past our turning. Finally, colder than we had ever been before, we reached the Chateau at Gueschart. There we found a charming and hospitable son of the house and a pleasantly adoring lad. With their aid we piled the floor of the harness-room with straw, and those of us who were not on duty slept finely.

From the dawn of the next morning we were working at top pressure right through the day, keeping in touch with the brigades which were billeted in villages several miles distant.

Late in the afternoon we discovered we were very short of petrol, so I was sent off to Crecy in our famous captured car, with a requisition. We arrived amidst cheers. I strode into the nearest garage and demanded 100 litres of petrol. It was humbly brought and placed in the car: then I sent boys flying round the town for jam and bread and butter, and in the meantime we entertained the crowd by showing them a German helmet. I explained volubly that my bandaged fingers—there was an affair of outposts with an ambulance near Serches—were the work of shrapnel, and they nearly embraced me. A boy came back and said there was no jam, so the daughter of the house went to her private cupboard and brought me out two jars of jam she had made herself, and an enormous glass of wine. We drove off amidst more cheers, to take the wrong road out of the town in our great excitement.

The brigades moved that night; headquarters remained at Gueschart until dawn, when the general started off in his car with two of us attendant.

Now before the war a motor-cyclist would consider himself ill-used if he were forced to take a car's dust for a mile or so. Your despatch rider was compelled to follow in the wake of a large and fast Daimler for twenty-five miles, and at the end of it he did not know which was him and which dust.

We came upon the 15th, shivering in the morning cold, and waiting for some French motor-buses. Then we rushed on to St Pol, which was crammed full of French transport, and on to Chateau Bryas. Until the other despatch riders came up there was no rest for the two of us that had accompanied the car. The roads, too, were blocked with refugees flying south from Lille and men of military age who had been called up. Once again we heard the distant sound of guns—for the first time since we had been at the Chateau of Longpont.

At last we were relieved for an hour, and taking possession of a kitchen we fried some pork-chops with onions and potatoes. It was grand. We washed them down with coffee, and went back to duty. For the remainder of that day and for the whole of the night there was no rest for us.

At dawn the Division marched in column of route north-east towards the sound of the guns.

Half of us at a time slipped away and fed in stinking taverns—but the food was good.

I cannot remember a hotter day, and we were marching through a thickly-populated mining district—the villages were uncomfortably like those round Dour. The people were enthusiastic and generous with their fruit and with their chocolate. It was very tiring work, because we were compelled to ride with the Staff, for first one of us was needed and then another to take messages up and down the column or across country to brigades and divisions that were advancing along roads parallel to ours. The old Division was making barely one mile an hour. The road was blocked by French transport coming in the opposite direction, by 'buses drawn up at the side of the road, and by cavalry that, trekking from the Aisne, crossed our front continuously to take up their position away on the left.

At last, about three o'clock in the afternoon, we reached the outskirts of Bethune. The sound of the guns was very near, and to the east of the town we could see an aeroplane haloed in bursting shrapnel.

The Staff took refuge first in an unsavoury field and afterwards in a little house. Despatch after despatch until evening—and then, ordered to remain behind to direct others, and cheered by the sight of our most revered and most short-sighted staff-officer walking straight over a little bridge into a deep, muddy, and stinking ditch, I took refuge in the kitchen and experienced the discreeter pleasures of "the Force." The handmaidens brought coffee, and brushed me and washed me and talked to me. I was sorry when the time came for me to resume my beat, or rather to ride with Cecil after the Division.

We passed some Turcos, happy-looking children but ill companions in a hostile country, and some Spahis with flowing burnous, who looked ridiculously out of place, and then, after a long search—it was dark on the road and very cold—we found the Division.

I dined off a maconochie, and was wondering whether I dare lie down to sleep, when I was called out to take a message to and remain at the 13th Brigade. It was a bad night. Never was a man so cold in his life, and the brigade had taken up its quarters in a farm situated in the centre of a very labyrinth of country roads. But I had four hours' sleep when I got there, while the others were up all the night.

There was no hurry in the morning. The orders were to join the Division at a bridge just outside Bethune, a point which they could not possibly reach before ten. So I got up late and had a glorious meal of soup, omelette, and fruit in the town, waited on by a most excellent flapper who wanted to know everything about everything. I reported at the Signal Office, then occupying the lodge of the town cemetery, and was sent off to catch the Devons. At the village where I waited for them I found some Cuirassiers, genial fellows; but living helios in the burning sun. When I returned the Division had moved along the north bank of the Canal to Beuvry Station. The post picked us up, and in the joyous possession of two parcels and some letters I unpacked my kit. We all settled down on some moderately clean straw in the waiting-room of the station, and there we remained for three full weeks.

Men talk of the battle of Ypres[15] as the finest achievement of the British Army. There was one brigade there that had a past. It had fought at Mons and Le Cateau, and then plugged away cheerfully through the Retreat and the Advance. What was left of it had fought stiffly on the Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it was thrown into action at La Bassee. There it fought itself to a standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and turning on the enemy held them. More hard marching—a couple of days' rest, and it staggered into action at Ypres, and somehow—no one knows how—it held its bit of line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres and went—not to rest—but to hold another bit of the line.

And this brigade was not the Guards Brigade. There were no picked men in the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line—the Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th Brigade did, other brigades have done.

Now little has been heard of this fighting round La Bassee in October, so I wish I could tell you about it in more detail than I can. To my thinking it was the finest fighting I have seen.